March - Skiing and Copenhagen

March is the month of US visitors as you'll see from my updates; every week there is a planned visitor and a few travel plans so should be a lot of fun.

Weekend of March 5

Group of 7 of us rented a chalet in Chamonix for the weekend to go skiing; this was also the weekend that another engagement team did a ski weekend so there were about 30 people in that town for the weekend.  We got a little over a foot of snow per day so probably one of the better ski days of the season; I managed to ski some off piste, took a wrong turn, and then ended up at someone's house and had to take off my gear and hike 15 min. back up the hill for the first time.

Week/Weekend of March 12

I grabbed dinner this week with the first US visitor of the month; Emily, an elementary school friend, was working in town from Netherlands.  Small world!

For the weekend, I traveled to Copenhagen to see two other former US coworkers; one now working in the UK (Kate) and the other in town from Detroit (Michael).  We did a walking tour, canal tour, and went to the Carlsberg brewery.  Definitely a fun city and would like to go back...in the summer when warm!

Weekend of March 19

Two other former coworkers were in town this weekend (Geoff and Pat) so a group of 8 of us rented a Chalet in Verbier; weather was gorgeous!

Currently, flying to Prague for work for the next 2 days; I've been before, but always fun to get a free trip to a cool city!

Marathon Training

As you be aware, I'm currently training for the Geneva marathon and planning to run with a few other coworkers.  This will be my 5th marathon and I feel pretty comfortable regarding how to train and what to expect based on the level of training.  I thought it would be fun to add an update regarding the differences from the US both positive and negative for comparison; I was contemplating calling March the "Month on E" rather than the "Month of Visitors."

Training in Switzerland has its positives, such as nice paths along the lake, many runners (PWC group runs every lunch), an active culture, and weather that allows you to run year round (I can count the number of times is was less than 32F on my hands and number of snowfalls with one).  No longer battling ice and snow as in the US has been a definite plus!

However, it also has its challenges:

Skiing - Although offering a great cross training opportunity, it also presents two challenges.  If not running by a lake, it's hilly as we're in the alps and it results in needing to run every weekday as skiing, or other travel, is planned every weekend so your body never rests.

Diet - My fastest marathon was when I was a Vegan.  The Swiss love their cheese, between raclette, fondue, rosti, tartaflette, etc. there is no shortage of tempting dishes compared to salad.  The chocolate also doesn't help....

Last few weeks of training, looking forward to being done training soon!  On a side note to add more activities to the mix, soccer starts next week:p

Dolomites

For the last weekend in February, I spent a long weekend (Thurs - Tues) in Cortina d'Ampezzo.  The city is about 2 hours north of Venice and was home to the 1956 Winter Olympics and the Skiing World Championships every few years.  At each resort I skied, I tried to make sure to ski the GS courses as there seemed to be one everywhere.  The resorts are quite massive and there are 12 in total connected on a single ticket and it's only feasible to ski one to two in a day.

Day 1 - I arrived and went to Venice for the day while out on my training run.  I relieved the glory days of my 2010 trip with Gergen and ran by where we stayed, first bar of our Eurotrip, and across the Rialto bridge.  It was a good day of sightseeing before jumping in my car for the 2 hour drive into the mountains; Venice is not the best city to run in though with many bridges and tons of tourists I noticed, but definitely a city with many sites!

Day 2 - I spent this day skiing in Socrepes; there are two ski resorts in Cortina (Socrepes and Faloria).  First impression of the Dolomites is the mountains are extremely pretty and similar to the US as there are trees; I did not find the skiing overly difficult compared to what I was used to in the Rockies, Switzerland, or France.

Day 3 - This day was a bit of a scramble as I was scheduled to run 14 miles as part of marathon training; this is no easy feat in a city that is at altitude, very hilly, and less than one mile long.  Ultimately, I tried to find a gym and a treadmill using Google Maps; on my 1st try, I arrived at a gym being built, 2nd try someone's apartment, and my 3rd and final try, I called a hotel and used their gym whose treadmill wasn't great so I biked 25 miles instead ha.  The 2nd half of the day I drove to Alta Badia (neighboring resort about 30 min. away) to check out some new terrain:

Day 4 - I skied Cortina3 - Faloria this day, which is the other resort in Cortina; note that it's now a blizzard and the city received a foot of snow overnight and it's supposed to keep snowing for the next 2 days.  This place was small, but really fun and unique as it requires you to take a gondola from the city to the top of a plateau that is then the base of the ski mountain.  Note the snow in the pictures....

Day 5 - Most epic day ever and the day that will not be forgotten! - So to start day 5, I had made the decision that I wanted to get up early to drive to Arabba (50 min. Away) to ski the Sella Ronda (5 hour ski loop through 4 of the resorts around a central mountain) and the Marmolada Glacier (Highest Peak in Dolomites).

I awoke and jumped in my car, which was a SMART car, and started my drive.  Not very far into the drive, I saw a large truck stopped and the drive was attaching snow chains and I was sliding all over the place and decided it would be best to do the same.  Having never used snow chains, I followed the directions/pictures and installed the chains; these were quite loud while driving and helped a little, but I also stopped and was assured that I had installed these correctly.  

Not much further into the trip (about 15 min. from my hotel), I made the executive decision that this trip is not going to happen as my car physically is unable to climb the mountain.  As I make slow into the mountain switchbacks and then accelerate to continue my climb coming out of them, the car's traction control keeps diverting power from the wheels and I'm literally not moving.  After some research in the manual (which is in Italian), I can't figure out how to turn off the traction control and take a U and head back to my hotel.  Note that I consider myself one of the better drivers in the snow I know, have not gotten stuck, and have received complements on my ability to handle a car in bad weather so this was a bit of a let down.  I could've taken a few more risks, but probably not the greatest decision on mountain passes. Further note that after performing some internet research, I discovered that there is not a switch for traction control in the car I was driving.

I didn't end up skiing this day as I'd skied all of the terrain that was reachable without driving and was a bit frustrated from the morning's drive.  I did try to go shopping and arrived at the store at 12:30, which coincidentally closes from 12:30 to 3:30; this city is beating me down today, ha.

Today was spent driving back to the airport to fly home.  All-in-all this was a great trip; the skiing wasn't that difficult, but probably one of the prettiest areas I've been.  I learned some good life lessons like how to install snow chains and to not to rent the smallest/cheapest car when on a trip in the mountains.

Stay tuned as I'll have to make it back to ski the Sella Ronda.

February (1st Half)

February 13 (Koinis Wedding)

I took a short weekend flight home to go to Steve's wedding and took quite the whirlwind trip to see friends and navigate linking rides across the state:

Flew home and landed on Thursday to stay with the Broff-Bergs and grab dinner with some of the Royal Oak crew.  The initial landing was a shock to the system as I'm not quite used to this cold anymore!

Friday, I relived a prior life grabbing brunch with Berg at Nat'l Coney before heading across the state by catching a ride with one of the bridesmaids to Muskegon.  You'll notice a recurring theme of breakfast/brunch as I tried to take advantage of this as we don't have many (or any I've found) brunch locations in Geneva.

I had the rehearsal dinner on Friday, which was a lot of fun, but the jet lag hit me quite hard at 9PM as I was struggling to stay awake.

Saturday, I grabbed breakfast with Steve, Greg, and Steve's dad before the wedding.  The wedding was a blast and it was so great seeing friends from soccer, PwC, and the RO area.  Manage to deal with the jet lag as I hosted the after party until 4am.  

Sunday, I rode with some wedding guests (Dan Kelly) to my brothers in Grand Rapids where I caught up with family before meeting up with my dad for dinner to ride home to Hastings. 

Monday, I had breakfast with a neighborhood friend coincidentally in town from Boulder (Erin), had dinner at the Gergens, and then caught up with JK, JD, and Mills at the end of the night before heading back on Tuesday (now).  

It was a busy weekend, but I wouldn't have done it any other way; it definitely made me thankful of all of the great friends and family surrounding me.  I can't wait to see many of you soon in EU or when home again in the summer.

Coincidentally, I finished both of my audit reports from the US.  This involved me signing a document, emailing my Swiss boss to then sign, and then email back to the US while ensuring all of this was done before midnight CET:p

February 20

It took a few days to re-adjust my sleep schedule back to European time from being home; luckily, it was not a crazy busy week.  On Friday, I went to the movies with friends; this was my first time at a movie theatre in Geneva.  The movies are in English with French and German subtitles and it's pretty funny seeing what words are obviously lost in translation

On Sunday, I went to Grand Montets (Chamonix) with the ski club.  I learned a fun lesson that you need more than your Swiss working permit at the border crossing; I got a 'free pass' the first time, but was warned that next time I would need to spend the day at the border until the ski club bus returned.  All in all, nice sunny day of skiing!

January Update (2nd Half)

January is a tough month as an accountant during busy season working 80 hour weeks (weekdays alone); I think the Swiss mindset is a little different than what I'm used to in the US.  For example, eating through lunch and dinner at the client site does not exist here nor does mandatory weekends working onsite.  Still late nights working a combination from onsite and home, but I was able to eat dinner at home almost every night and maintain a regular running routine and have free time on the weekends.

Weekend of January 23

My engagement team spent the weekend together in Verbier skiing and stayed at one of our Assistant's family chalets (Thank You Freddy).  Never would I have ever envisioned taking a group vacation for a weekend of busy season ha.  Team had a blast and skiing was spectacular.  Had my first Raclette at a restaurant where there were two seatings for the entire restaurant (7 and 9) and a central Raclette machine where everyone is served from.

Most of the team at the top of Mt. Fort

Why hello there Matterhorn

Raclette

Weekend of January 30
Spent the weekend relaxing, catching up on life, and no skiing as weather wasn't great; officially a fail on skiing goal ha.

Weekend of February 6

Back on the bandwagon and skied with the ski club in La Thuile, Italy.  Fun fact for the region is many of the cities have French names and I was under the impression I was going to ski in La Thuile, France (also a close ski town) until I saw signs for Courmayeur.  Blue bird day and the resort had some great runs that seemed endless; the women's World Cup will be at this resort the end of February and we skied the GS run that was in the process of being gated.  Smooth, tough run that apparently is the steepest GS in Europe.  This was also my first time skiing in Italy and the terrain is similar, but food choices are quite different:

France/Swiss: Tartaflette and Rosti

Italy: Polenta and Pasta

Currently, I'm on my flight back to the US for the Koinis wedding on a short trip (Thursday - Tuesday); I will miss the skiing goal this week, but it's an acceptable excuse.

January Update (1st Half)

So I've started January with a new goal while trying to manage working busy season hours; I'm going to ski at least once each weekend during the ski season provided no conflicting trips planned.  So far I've been doing well on this goal...

Jan 9

I went skiing with the ski club in Flaine, France (Grand Massif) and was soaking wet.  I could wring out my gloves at the end of the day and they were pouring water.

Jan 16

Skied in Interlaken, Grindelwald, and Wengen area.  A small group of us rented a chalet for a friend that was in town from the US to ski.  Saturday was great and we covered much of the resort other than a run in Wengen as the skiing World Cup was being skied this weekend at that site.  

Sunday was the randomest day ever....

Going into the day there were several questions regarding the following day's activities; to ski or to sled, as conditions looked to be bad the day began in flux.  After some confusion, we called the front desk at 9:47 and learned that breakfast needed at 10 so the group instantly dropped what they were doing to run to breakfast at the main lodge from our chalet.

Following breakfast, the group packed and went to check out with a continual debate to ski or to sled.  The weather looked terrible so we planned to sled at first although the ski race was on TV and it was sunny so I made the executive decision we should try to ski.  We then realized we missed the normal city bus to town so the hotel drove us and we brought our gear to the train station to save time.  Once arriving at the train station at 9:40 we began to slowly put our bags into the lockers and quickly realized that that was a train to Klein Scheidegg (top of the ski hill) would be leaving in 5 minutes so this became a scramble....we did make it although we did not realize that the train ticket was $15 and saved almost no time ($30 for those with non half-fare) when compared to taking the city bus to the gondola.

The day did end there, upon reaching the top of the mountain the weather was once again terrible so we were debating even buying lift tickets so we decided to ski down planning to ski all the way to the bottom and then call it a day thus not requiring a lift ticket.  The one run all the way to the bottom was a blast!  Upon reaching to the bottom, we realized that our train tickets were never scanned....so we did this again, and then did it again while stopping for lunch on the mountain, and then took the train to the top again...so yes, we outsmarted the Swiss train/lift ticket system.

So we skied the rest of the day via the train rather than chair lift and then finished the day.  Our last scramble of the day involved us getting to the bottom of the ski hill and taking a train to the main station to arrive at 4:14 and needing to board another train leaving at 4:17.  Keep in mind that our entire group is still in our ski gear, with skis, and still still needing to get our bags from the lockers.  We miraculously made this and were lucky enough to get thrown in a cargo car with no seats for the first train (45 min), which sounds terrible, but was great as it allowed us pack all of our bags and get situated before heading on the 2 hour train ride home to Geneva.

So...first half of January I'm 2 for 2 on skiing!

December Update

No major trips planned the remainder of December before returning home later in the month, but consistent with this time in the US there is always a lot of fun activities that I wanted to highlight.
Weekend of December 12
Stayed in Geneva for PwC Christmas party in Geneva, which is an event that never disappoints.  The structure was a bit different than that in the US as the Swiss party is an employee only happy hour, but nevertheless always a good time.  Following day, we celebrated Brad's birthday in Lausanne going out with friends.

Weekend of December 19
During this weekend, I went to an ugly Christmas sweater party at the Johnsons with a white elephant gift exchange.  An ugly sweater did not quite make the cut of items I shipped over from the US, but I will make sure that I am prepared next year after being home for Christmas.  As part of the white elephant gift exchange, I managed to come home with a PwC laptop bag if anyone needs one.

Saturday, I went to my first Swiss Christmas market!  I took the train to Montreaux to see what the hype was about and it is a very fun experience of small shops, bands, and vin chaud.  I tried my first roasted chestnuts; not too bad.  

After returning from the Christmas market, the remainder of my weekend was packing for the trip home the following Monday, purchasing and filling half of my 2nd suitcase with Chocolate for friends, and watching a Star Wars marathon as I planned to see the new movie with my sister's family and friends when landing; yes, I'm a huge nerd!

December 21 to January 6

Returning home for the first time since moving was quite eventful; I had great aspirations of relaxing and working, but spent most of the time catching up with family and friends...

I spent the first 4 days of my trip in Minneapolis staying with my sister's family.  Highlights of the visit were going to Star Wars immediately when landing with their family, grabbing lunch with Matt Schnackenberg, making Christmas cookies, and admiring the cities' Christmas lights with their family at the city display with all lights synced to music. 

The next week was spent in Hastings and Grand Rapids where I had a great Christmas Eve dinner at the Gergens, Family Christmas at Marcs, hockey party at JKs, and got my fix on board games at Gergens.  I also picked up my new skis from home to bring back to Geneva!

The next two days were spent in Detroit staying at the Koinis residence and rendezvousing with friends over meals/drinks before New Years Eve where coincidentally both of the parties that I wanted to attend were about a 10 minute walk/2 minute drive apart.

NYE reunion of the team of legends that has won every 3v3 soccer tournament that we have entered as a team (plus Chav).

Immediately following NYE was the 3rd Annual Crew Christmas party at the Carpenters where we did Hibachi followed by another White Elephant Gift Exchange.

The last stop on my journey home was Chicago where I stayed with the
Angelettis.  While in Chicago, I had a Hastings reunion with the neighborhood group of friends, grabbed dinner with Noah/Kyle, grabbed lunches with Aimee, Lisa, and Phil, and had a work training.

I think that sums it up.....not sure it could have been more eventful, or action packed, but was definitely a lot of fun and I'm very thankful for all of the great friends and family members in my life.  I'm writing most of this on my return trip to Geneva with Gladiator in the background (this is a big deal for those of you that know me well:p).  After landing in Paris on a connecting flight; it feels comforting to hear some French ironically.

Looking forward to seeing what 2016 brings after a big 2015!